15 lbs Farmers walk + bicep curls for 1 mile. I survived

[JowGaWolf]

I lived through day one without stopping or putting the weight down. I carried it all the way. I couldn't do as many as I wanted, but I didn't quit, and finished up tonight's exercise with a nice flow of upper cuts that I won't be doing again anytime soon. My structure isn't good enough at 15 lbs. I need my structure and core to be stronger before I get into the uppercuts (shoeshine). I haven't made up my mine yet, but I'm thinking that I will need to alternate the 15lbs or cut the distance in half. I wanted to quit before I finished the first lap lol. I think most of it is me getting out of that comfort zone of being able to do something easily.

It's almost like starting all over from the beginner. For now I'm just going to see how my body responds to the new weight.

 

[Flying Crane]

I’m gonna suggest your step up in weight should have been to 10 or 12 pounds instead of 15. At 15, you’ve nearly doubled the weight you had been training, which is usually too big of a jump. You’ve got to be patient and work up to it. Especially if the increase in weight makes it impossible to keep good form and structure.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I’m gonna suggest your step up in weight should have been to 10 or 12 pounds instead of 15. At 15, you’ve nearly doubled the weight you had been training, which is usually too big of a jump. You’ve got to be patient and work up to it. Especially if the increase in weight makes it impossible to keep good form and structure.

I will be cutting back on the distance. A mile of walking with 8 lbs no problem. But a mile of walking with 15 lbs... yeah that's not going to happen because I found myself correcting my structure too much, that's when injuries occur. If I want to do a mile, then the weights need to be 10 or 12 lbs. I can keep good structure at half a mile, so I'll start there.

The 10 or 12 pound choice is still an option. If I want to do the uppercuts then it definitely needs to be the lower weights. The upper cuts really burn the muscles out. I'll give a week of the 15lb curls only half a mile. then switch to the 8lbs and crank out the other exercises like upper cuts and the other exercises that I do that aren't ready for the weight increase. That way I get my 2 laps in and stay injury free.

 

[Flying Crane]

Don’t be in a hurry. Might take longer than a week before you are ready for the next.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Don’t be in a hurry. Might take longer than a week before you are ready for the next.

This is the hardest part at this point. With weight lifting I usually do the same number of reps and sets each time I increase the weight. But this is different as I don't care about the number of reps as much as I do the distance and the weight.

My thinking on this type of exercise is that it shouldn't feel like weight lifting when you really have to push or pull with all of your strength. This should burn on the the endurance side and not the weight side. The weight shouldn't feel heavy from the start, but should gradually be more difficult to lift as the weight progresses. If I need a break from the curls then I should be able to rest with a farmer's walk or by resting the weight on my shoulders for a few seconds.

So far the weight increase has been 2 5 8. So I'm thinking 12 then 15. I'll have to pick up the 12 pound weight this week when I exchange of the 15 lb dumbbells that is defective. 12 will be the leap so that 15 isn't. This will help me get this exercise to be more than an experiment.

Overall what started as the first real exercise after rehab is turning out to be better than I would have guess. The stabilizing muscles in my back are much stronger, my arms are much stronger, my grip is much stronger, my muscle endurance is much stronger. I didn't think I would have gotten the gains that I have from just 5 and 8 pounds.

 

[Flying Crane]

This is the hardest part at this point. With weight lifting I usually do the same number of reps and sets each time I increase the weight. But this is different as I don't care about the number of reps as much as I do the distance and the weight.

My thinking on this type of exercise is that it shouldn't feel like weight lifting when you really have to push or pull with all of your strength. This should burn on the the endurance side and not the weight side. The weight shouldn't feel heavy from the start, but should gradually be more difficult to lift as the weight progresses. If I need a break from the curls then I should be able to rest with a farmer's walk or by resting the weight on my shoulders for a few seconds.

So far the weight increase has been 2 5 8. So I'm thinking 12 then 15. I'll have to pick up the 12 pound weight this week when I exchange of the 15 lb dumbbells that is defective. 12 will be the leap so that 15 isn't. This will help me get this exercise to be more than an experiment.

Overall what started as the first real exercise after rehab is turning out to be better than I would have guess. The stabilizing muscles in my back are much stronger, my arms are much stronger, my grip is much stronger, my muscle endurance is much stronger. I didn't think I would have gotten the gains that I have from just 5 and 8 pounds.

Especially because you are coming off an injury, you need to be careful. Don’t re-injure yourself. Just be cautious.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Always remember that weight and speed don't go together. I don't like slow speed training, but weight force me to slow down.

If you use bricks, you can develop grip strength at the same time.

Brick is a good SD weapon.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Always remember that weight and speed don't go together. I don't like slow speed training, but weight force me to slow down.

I agree, but the speed that I'm going at is not me trying to punch as fast as I can. It's not a speed develop exercise, it's a strength one. When I work on speed exercises I don't use weights..

I like the brick exercise you showed. What type of thickness should the brick be? Should my hand be more like tiger or more like crane for the brick or does it matter? Speaking of grip, tonight I did something unexpectedly.

I needed a pot of water tonight, so I grabbed one of pots that I have that looks like this and I grabbed it with one hand with my thumb on top and my fingers under the bottom of it and I started to fill it up with water, a few seconds later as this things is filling up, I'm playing with the water making it go around in a circle and it wasn't until the pot was full of water that I realized I was holding this pot with a steady hand and could not feel the weight of it.

I think I could have drank water out of this pot similar to how one would hold a cereal bowl and drink milk out of it. Normally when I fill this pot up it's a two hand job and I always feel the pot get heavier as more water fills it, but today is was steady, my hand didn't drop one bit. The result of my training has been surprising me by making some of the everyday things I do easier. Lifting awkward 30lb and 50lb bags of soil are much easier now. A lot of the stabilizing muscles in my back are stronger from the exercises I've been doing on my walk. I still put those bags on a truck when I get home and wheel them out to where they need to be. I have had too many injuries because of lifting those bags, so I don't push my luck. It's the awkwardness of the bags that makes the lift difficult. Then if it rains the soil inside the bag is usually wet. This past weekend I moved 4 bags with no problem.

A fully loaded trash bin like the biggest one here is easier to pull and push I still feel the weight of it but not like before. Now it just feels half full. All this may not seem remarkable, but it's good news or me after almost a year on the "injury list." I'm still nervous about my hip though. I'm scared to shuffle other than walking with weights, I haven't been doing anything to prepare my hip for that lateral movement. I'll probably ease into that as well. Maybe incorporate some lateral movement on days when I walk with my staff.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

What type of thickness should the brick be? Should my hand be more like tiger or more like crane for the brick or does it matter?

The width of the brick doesn't matter much. For grip strength development, it works better than the dumbbell.

The grip strength may not be that important in the striking art. But it's very important in the grappling art.

 

[dvcochran]

I lived through day one without stopping or putting the weight down. I carried it all the way. I couldn't do as many as I wanted, but I didn't quit, and finished up tonight's exercise with a nice flow of upper cuts that I won't be doing again anytime soon. My structure isn't good enough at 15 lbs. I need my structure and core to be stronger before I get into the uppercuts (shoeshine). I haven't made up my mine yet, but I'm thinking that I will need to alternate the 15lbs or cut the distance in half. I wanted to quit before I finished the first lap lol. I think most of it is me getting out of that comfort zone of being able to do something easily.

It's almost like starting all over from the beginner. For now I'm just going to see how my body responds to the new weight.

Well I did not know something I have done most of my life has become a trendy exercise.
FWIW, if the load has to go very far I will get the weight on a shoulder if possible. I suppose it it just something you learn when you have to carry stuff all day.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Well I did not know something I have done most of my life has become a trendy exercise.
FWIW, if the load has to go very far I will get the weight on a shoulder if possible. I suppose it it just something you learn when you have to carry stuff all day.

The best exercises are the functional ones. I honestly believe that.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I lived through day one without stopping or putting the weight down.

It doesn't matter what you may do today. It matters whether you will still do it 20 years from today.

You should not force yourself to do anything. You do because you enjoy of doing it and not because you have to do it.

No pain, no gain is 100% wrong attitude.

 

[dvcochran]

It doesn't matter what you may do today. It matters whether you will still do it 20 years from today.

You should not force yourself to do anything. You do because you enjoy of doing it and not because you have to do it.

No pain, no gain is 100% wrong attitude.

I fully agree with your first sentence.
I half agree with your second sentence.
I fully disagree with the third sentence with conditions. The third sentence is just a reality sometimes. Discomfort is just part of the process at times. Stretch, push, pull = grow. It is a process of nature.

 

[JowGaWolf]

You should not force yourself to do anything. You do because you enjoy of doing it and not because you have to do it.

No pain, no gain is 100% wrong attitude.

There's 2 types of pain. There's pain that is the result of injury. There's pain from muscle working. The pain that I have is pain from muscle working to point of fatigue and not pain because muscle is damaged from injury. If you fully open and fully close your hand as fast as you can for a minute, most will feel discomfort towards the end of that 1 minute. You aren't using any weight and you aren't injuring your muscle.

This type of pain is often call "the burn" or is described as "muscle burning." The good thing about this is that it's not a set limit. As your muscles get stronger and better conditioned and the muscle can do more without difficulty.

It's also not a cramping where muscle function is not possible even after a rest. I like using fatigue better than "point of failure" point of failure can also be caused by injury. There's a bunch of science stuff that I was going to post, but it went into my ear as "blah, blah, blah. science. blah fitness, ha ha ha."

When I walk and curl and hit that fatigue wall, I switch into a farmer's carry or a shoulder carry to allow my arm to recover. If I go total fatigue then I would have to drop the weight and then take a long break, which is counter productive for what I'm trying to accomplish. If I'm punching someone then I don't want my arms to reach total failure because then I get floppy arms and lose the ability to even punch beyond the strength of a 10 year old kid.

 

[JowGaWolf]

It doesn't matter what you may do today. It matters whether you will still do it 20 years from today.

What I'm able to do today will have a direct effect on what I'm able to do 20 years from now.

You should not force yourself to do anything. You do because you enjoy of doing it and not because you have to do it.

If I want to accomplish what I'm working towards, both in health and martial arts, then this is what I have to do. There will be days where I don't want to push through, there will be days where I want to give up. Just because I don't want to do it, doesn't mean that I shouldn't be doing it. I hate practicing piano, but if I want to be good at it, then I'm going to need to do a lot of what I hate.

Sometimes the path that we must take is not the path that we want, but the path that we need, to accomplish the goal that we seek. Dieting and weigh loss often falls along these lines. Martial Arts in general is another. People want black belts. Which path to a lot of people rather take?

 

[JowGaWolf]

Discomfort is just part of the process at times. Stretch, push, pull = grow. It is a process of nature.

I don't think I've every learned anything in my life where there was some measure of discomfort. The biggest issue for me wasn't so much the discomfort as my willingness to deal with it at that point of time in my life. The discomfort of being out of shape may outweigh the discomfort out of working out. The discomfort of studying for a career may risk the discomfort of being poor.

I'm with you. It's just a natural part of life.